Apple's long-time professional photo-editing software, Aperture, has been confirmed to be on its way out of the Mac App Store when Apple officially launches its new Photos application for OS X Yosemite later in the Spring of this year. Apple has confirmed the decision on the Aperture page on the company's Web site, as well as in the Mac App Store description for the application:

Apple's new Photos application for OS X Yosemite first appeared in the first developer's seed of OS X 10.10.3 just last week and includes a variety of photo-editing tools built into the application that Apple has apparently deemed good enough to replace the relatively expensive Aperture photo-editing software.

Aperture retails for $79.99 in the Mac App Store, but the Photos application for OS X Yosemite will be a free download, as it is included inside of Apple's operating system. Apple has been pushing towards better free software in recent years by releasing OS X updates for free, and even making the entire iWork and iLife application suites free in the Mac App Store and iOS App Store. The decision to move away from the paid Aperture and move over to the free Photos application for OS X appears to be no different.

If you were thinking about buying Aperture for OS X, then you may want to think again. When the application is pulled from the Mac App Store, Apple will no longer be issuing application updates for the software; all support will be considered "as is."